Nice to see two committed Christians get the spotlight and use it to give Him glory!

PS I love watching the interviewer squirm when the interviewee starts talking about the Lord, always funny!

Are we allowed to get back to Football?!?! Indy Wins. Bears quarterback fails to take the field.

Brad

Re: 35

That’s a great point. But it still doesn’t demand of us to never drink. If we are in the company of someone who thinks it is inherently a sin to drink, we should refrain, or if we are in the company of someone who tends to drink too much and is trying to give it up, he might not understand that we are using alcohol differently than he is used to, and he might very easily use our use as an excuse for HIS perverted use.

In perhaps the same way, if there is someone in your church recovering from a porn addiction, you probably don’t want to talk to him about the wonderful sex you had with your wife last night, and how much God taught you about himself through it.

So we definitely need to be cautious about the weaker brother. However, at the same time, we don’t have to conform to legalistic standards for the sake of legalists. Some fundamentalists think it’s a sin to go to the movies. I hereby refuse to stop going to movies. I might not talk to him about how great the new James Bond movie is (and that’s one heck of a movie), but I’m not going to stop going to movies.

So the answer isn’t to not drink at all. In fact, if you, as a pastor, never, ever drink, and someone with my view of alcohol (a view I think is grounded in Scripture) comes into your church and sees that you never drink, you might actually make him feel GUILTY for something that God does not condemn. You have to be careful not to appear as a hedonist on the one hand, but you have to be equally careful not to appear as a legalist on the other. Either way you could cause someone to stumble.

The best thing to do is refrain from drinking if someone is offended. Sometimes, when we have someone over to our house, we will simply ask them if they’ll be offended if we serve alcohol. If they answer is yes, we refrain with no regrets. Pastors, however, need to be shepherding this person to overcome their legalistic attitude. Legalism is also a sin. We must not add to the law of God, nor take anything from it.

Deu 4:2 You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.

Here, God condemns legalism every bit as much as antinomianism. We are neither allowed to ignore laws, nor add to them. Both are equally sinful. The man who thinks it’s a sin to drink any alcohol at all commits just as evil a sin as the one who thinks lying is ok or adultery or murder. One adds to the Word of God, one takes away from it. Both are condemned in Scripture.

But above all else, we should remember that the law never goes alone. As a pastor, or even as a Christian, whenever we discuss the law of God, and I’m speaking to myself too, we should always remember to discuss the gospel as well.

As Christians, we are not condemned for our sin. Jesus paid for it. So when one Christian points out the sin of another Christian, it cannot be condemnation. There IS NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But there is still sin, and we should help each other to discover it and kill it, nailing it to the cross of Christ.

I am terrible about pointing this out, but there it is.

E